No lank pennants for me, please.

“Why are there men and women that while they are nigh me, the sun-light expands my blood?Why, when they leave me, do my pennants of joy sink flat and lank?”-Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road

Day 1: Arrive in new location. Find hostel. Meet people, small talk and getting to know each other. Do some stuff.Day 2: Hang out together, go see some sights or do some stuff.(Optional Day 2.1: Extension of Day 2)Day 3: Other people leave. I stay. Feel lonely, abandoned, and generally out of sorts.Day 4: Leave. ( = Day 1 in new location, if I’m lucky.)

That’s a fairly typical (and substantially idealized) version of traveling for me. I often stay that one extra day after everyone has left. The common room seems quiet, once lunch is done I’m not sure what to do with myself, and the new people just aren’t as interesting as the ones who just left.

But not this time.

Day 1: Arrive in Montezuma, find hostel, meet a bunch of great people. Swim in the ocean.

Fetch goes as long as there’s light.Stick, coconut, don’t matter.

Day 2: Swim in waterfall, play fetch with awesome town dogs, talk late into the night and do a little shimmying on the dance floor.Day 3: Bitchin’ hike through Cabo Blanco (albeit alone), swim in ocean, find hidden locals eatery with friends, eat spicy onion-chili mixture and listen to howler monkeys.Day 4: The Argentineans leave. The American & Danish couple leaves. The 3 American guys leave.

What then? Out of sorts? Dispirited? Lonely? Pennants flat and lank?

Hells no!

One set of footprints. No problem.

Peaceful. Calm and comfortable. Quiet. Tranquil. Grateful and slightly reminiscent.My pennants and I took a stroll down the beach, hung out with the cutest Rottweiler I’ve ever seen, and watched the sky redefining the scope of the word “blue.”